Chapter Ten

Cat Scratch Fever

Dizzy swirling lights bounced in
the middle of the night. The echoes of trance music sailed across the room.
Red hues flowed and flickered, turning bright red and then disappearing back
into the darkness.

Jane was really drunk. The brown-haired
woman leaned at an ivory bar table, faintly smiling as she put the cool bottle
to her rouge lips. The flowing, dull liquid zinged past her tongue. Jane watched
as other girls danced with each other. All kinds of girls. Butch womyn with
short, dark black hair trodded across the dance floor in baggy dress clothing.
Womyn goddesses wiggled their thin, sweaty hips. Long flowing hair and midnight
eyes. Jane sighed. The usual crowd.

There were Cindy and Jen. Anita and
Raye. Mina and Marce. Even parents Leda and Alexis left their kids with a babysitter
for tonight. Girls Jane knew. Girls Jane did. And girls, for some funny reason,
Jane wasn’t interested in. Alex
walked up with a thin Haitian chick. “This is Maria,” she said proudly of her
skinny prize.

“How do you do?” Maria said excitedly.
Her thin, tanned hands stretched out. Jane happily squeezed it like a bull.
She thought that Maria’s girly fingers would crumble off.

“She’s a doctor,” Alex said proudly
of her jeweled treasure. Maria’s flowing black hair and copper skin glowed as
the disco ball bounced rays of light upon her body, her faded red dress, before
the bright lights faded away.

“Are you gonna be alright?” Alex
asked. “I’ll be fine,” Jane
muttered, placing her lips to the bottle again and took a swig of the blonde
ailment. “Go get your groove on and give me details after this hangover goes
away.”

“Okay,” Alex shrugged and walked
away. Alex always got her girl. And Jane normally would too. Or two or three
at the same time. But this time, Jane didn’t want to be with anyone.

As Alex and her Caribbean bimbo walked
away, Jane noticed that a new stranger was now standing at the bar with her.
A woman with long, purple hair looked down on the ground. Her brown felt hat
covered her eyes but left strands of her gorgeous purple hair peering out from
the top of her head. She was wearing a very loose white dress shirt with a dark
red tie and sagging black dress pants. She nervously touched a cigarette to
her lips and started to pretend she was sucking it. “Need
a light?” Jane whispered to the woman and whipped out a lighter.

“Thanks,” the woman responded softly.
They shared the comforting blue flame. The woman inhaled and started hacking.
Chunks of smoke emitted from her mouth. “You’ve
never smoked before haven’t ya?” Jane asked.

“No,” the woman looked away. “This
is my first time.”

“It takes a little practice,” Jane
replied. She took the cigarette and put it to her lips. “You’re not supposed
to suck it so much. Just get what you need and go.”

“Well, I thought that if I was going
to start, I might as well dive in head first,” the girl replied. She looked
back. This time, her small purple eyes appeared somewhat from the hat. The woman
looked very familiar to Jane but she was too buzzed to recall.

Missy Elliot’s “Work It” blasted
through the room. All the girls who were not so modest were getting very freaky
on the dance floor. But the focus was on the two grrls in the center of the
dance floor- Jane and the mysterious woman. The girl insisted on leaving her
hat on. Jane was fine with that. She was enjoying the rest of the scenery. The
mystery woman's flowed like a drape of purple and turquoise, as her hips undulated
to the sitareeking voice of Missy Elliot.

Jane was awstruck. Most girls she
knew would just cling to Dunway like a fly to a light bulb. But this girl was
different. She had a free spirit. The lights seemed to spotlight around her.
The woman's perfect complexion beemed through the spotlight. Her ruby red lips
smiling with glee. Her purple eyes looking up the sky in silent ecstasy. She
was no ordinary woman, Jane thought.

Jane started to wiggle her thin hips
to the woman's rhtythm. Bodies shaking. Hearts racing. Drum beat rolling faster.
Legs and thighs were getting closer and close. The woman at first had turned
her face away from Jane, looking shy and coy at the same time. But in these
slow play frottages, the woman's face turned to her lover, still looking down
on the grond. Hair still flowing and hips still shaking.

"You're a really good dancer," Jane
said excitedly.

"Thanks," the woman sheepishly replied.
"So are you."

"So where are you from?" Jane spoke
into the woman's ear.

"Pretty close by," the woman said.
"San Francisco State University." "That's cool," Jane replied. “I’m at UC Berkeley.
Because I’m such a smartass.”

“Ha! I don't think so." The girl
looked nervous as she shook her vase-like figure. “I don’t know how to say it
to you,” She turned towards Jane. Their eyes met. “I think you are the hottest
girl I have ever known and you make me do things I’ve never thought of doing.”

Jane looked bashful. “Well, I’d like
to kiss ya but you need to take off your hat.”

“NO!” the woman stepped back.
“The hat stays on."

But, as fate would have it, the hat
fell off her head as a divine wind blew through the club. Jane realized that
her mysterious dance partner was....

" Shampoo?"

Shampoo took one quick look at Jane
and turned away. She grabbed her hat and dashed out of the club as fast as she
could. Jane stood on the dance floor in complete shock. She let the rest of
the music drag on and the rest of the girls dancing. She stood like a statue,
the sudden picture that her Asian goddess was real for one small second. And
she blew it. She couldn't say "Stop!" and grab onto her and never let Shampoo
go. But she didn't. Jane decided
that she would not go home with another woman that night and quickly walked
past Alex and her partner and out of the Club.